Flashback Fridays: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Hello everybody, welcome to a long overdue installment of Flashback Fridays. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what’s going on here, please refer to previous articles for more information. Today we are going to take a look at a game that sent out the SNES on a high note, and was quite possibly one of the best RPGs ever made. The title that I am referring to was a rare collaboration in the late 90s between Square Enix and Nintendo called Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

Back in 1996, the Super Nintendo was in it’s last days, and the new generation of video games was right around the corner. Now before leaving an entire generation for good, some developers still decided to create new titles to appeal to those people who were not willing to give up on their beloved 16-bit system just yet. One of these projects included the first role playing game featuring one of the most famous plumbers of all time entitled Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Not ready to move to a next generation of consoles at the time, I decided to give this title a try, and after just one playthrough, it easily became one of my favorite Mario games ever made.

The setup starts off like any other typical Mario adventure, Princess Peach has been captured by Bowser, and it’s up to our beloved hero to save her once again. During their epic battle, a sword crashes into Bowser’s Castle, which upon arrival sends all three of them flying in separate directions, and ends up scattering several star fragments, along with destroying Star Road in the process as well. Mario then finds out that the castle has now been overrun by the dreadful Smithy Gang, and the only thing that he can do to stop their invasion is to collect these fragments to repair the road, and defeat Smithy before it’s too late. The gameplay centers around using turn based commands to defeat enemies, and exploring environments to find pieces of the star. Even though the formula may sound tried and true, trust me, the game is still very fun to play.

As far as my personal thoughts on this title go, not much else can be said other than it’s a fantastic experience that all gamers should try to play at least once. The 3D style was unlike anything else I ever seen before on this system, all of the characters had an incredible sense of personality, the controls were simple and easy to understand, and the musical score was just downright phenomenal as well. One of the best parts about this whole title was the fact that it changed up who the villain was for the first time ever in a Mario game. It was a fresh concept that made me really appreciate this title, and is still the reason why I respect these developers so much for creating such a unique experience to this very day.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars proved that even a known franchise can still learn some new tricks, and is without a doubt worth checking out.

That concludes my story on Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, but if you have any fond memories of this game please feel free to share them with us in the comments below.